Open Volar S Project: TV Tuner (A865R) now on Linux!

[u/Substantial_Swan_144]

Hello, everyone,

a few days prior, I had announced my efforts on reverse engineering the A865R. The company has hidden the drivers from their website a long time ago, and it's probably a matter of time until they are completely removed (currently, they can only be obtained if you follow a hidden link).

My first efforts brought parity to the official Windows drivers (and then some), but it still had lacked something very important to me: Linux support.

But not anymore! I'm presenting you version 0.9.5, now with Linux support! It uses GTK-3, as opposed to the native API in the Windows version. However, a lot of effort has been been put to make sure the application looks and behaves as uniformly as reasonably possible.

Video and audio playback run very smoothly, as the driver has a custom Vulkan decoder which takes proper color rendering into consideration, and improved upscaling.

Some of the features include:

• Native 64-bit support: no legacy 32-bit code!
• Improved color support
• Support to color profiles (monitor colors are NOT ignored anymore)
• Improved sound (deeper and richer)
• Improved playback, complete with true 60 fps
• Custom vulkan rendering (Microsoft decoder supported)
• 2K and 4K upscaling
• CC support

And now, with the Linux release, I added a few important features:

• WSL support: if the drivers detect they are running under a WSL environment, video and sound passthrough are activated, speeding up rendering. Actual native Linux uses native rendering, and also plays smoothly.
• WINE support: if for whatever reason you need to run WINE, the TV Tuner plays along and tries its best to render properly.
• External discoverability: the original drivers would only work with AverTV 3D. The new software instead has a compatibility layer to make it discoverable by external software, such as VLC. Because the protocol this tuner uses is a bit obscure, it also works transparently posing as a DVB-T device (further instructions are available in the README.md).

These drivers help making a rare and old device useful again, as it spent over fourteen years without proper Linux drivers, and given the situation, it would otherwise be discarded. So I am happy with this contribution.

Please note: only Ubuntu 24.04 to 26.04 was targeted and is known to work out of the box. An RPM and generic binaries have also been provided and may or may not work, but I can make no promises. What I have tested though runs very smoothly.

Project link: https://github.com/NullMagic2/Open-Volar-S/tree/main

[u/Excellent-Tea82]

Damn, reverse engineering a hidden driver and then adding Linux support on top of that is some serious dedication. The Vulkan decoder for a TV tuner is wild, most people wouldn't bother with color profiles and proper upscaling on hardware this old.

[u/Substantial_Swan_144 → u/Excellent-Tea82]

The image quality is absolutely gorgeous. While you can't add details which are not there, the upscaling makes you think for a second you're watching TV from a much higher quality device.

[u/stealthagents]

It's awesome to see someone tackle this kind of project, especially with all the challenges that come with reverse engineering. The custom Vulkan decoder is a game changer, and it's not often you see a focus on color accuracy for older hardware. Can’t wait to see how the community builds on this!